Harry, Jeffrey and Benoit

I first ate at the London version of Harry’s Bar in the early 1990s. Back then, Jeffrey Archer and I would give each other dinner about three times a year. It was my turn and he suggested Harry’s, where he was a member but I could pay (on expenses, needless to say). I remember the meal vividly because it was awful. Choosing the same dishes, we started with a risotto, which was just rice plus ingredients. Then there was a leg of lamb for two, grossly over-salted. Had I been the nominal host as well as the real one, it would have gone back to the kitchen with a flea in its ear. Two glasses of competent champagne were followed by a nothing-special Chianti: bill, £208 — to repeat, at early 1990s prices.

I concluded that this was a place for those with more money than taste, to preen and be seen, looking out for Bimbo Bimbette or Florette Floosie or other celebrities whom I had never heard of.